Now, please keep in mind being one of the OLD players I know some of my info is a bit outdated as I don’t believe when you start out that you are forced to spawn in the forest of souls or the like anymore.
I’m going to presume you can figure out how to name your character, and that you are able to create their appearance. If you can’t well… I’m not sure how much this guide will help.
Talent Selection (Providing you are just now creating your char for the first time, if you are rebirthing things go a little different)
So there you are standing all alone in the middle of a very white place. This is the Soul Stream, what makes us able to traverse the world of Erinn. Flash! A bright light engulfs your screen!
Wow! There’s some pretty white haired lady by name of Nao, as she gracefully lands before you with a gentle smile on her face. That’s nice and welcoming! Time to pick your talent class!
Now don’t worry, you aren’t locked into the class you pick. All picking a talent does is double the skill training. Anytime that you rebirth you can change it. The only thing I would suggest is think hard about what you want to be able to do. The combative talents are just that, means for fighting mobs (mobiles, monsters, enemies). You have a wide variety to choose from. If you think you need to hop over to the section about combat talents.
Understand that each has a stat that will be affected by how you play, and will affect how you are able to play. To list the original ‘talent’ set from back in the day it used to be you could only be a warrior, archer, or mage. Obviously warrior was a primarily strength based class, beating your foes into submission with swords, axes, clubs, and maces, strength also helps to determine your defense stat. Archer was a dexterity based class, focused on keeping a large distance between you and your prey, using a combination of certain skills to inflict massive damage, and another skill to knockback any enemy that gets to close for comfort. Last but not least was Mage, a catch all title back in the day it covered both healing magic and damaging magic. Magic depending on which your casting ran either will or intelligence. Will I think was healing magic and resistance to magic, while intelligence was used to help determine mp and magic damage.
The scope of what can be done is MUCH larger now. I’ll list what ‘classes’ are more close range-mid range, and which are long range and a description I’ll post Galaxis’s actual list on another page.
Close – Mid range (or as I like to call them YOU WANNA GO?! classes)
- Close Combat/Warrior – the mmorpg bread and butter, strength based and easy to use, this class is good for getting hp, and strength and they by defense.
- Fighter – Strength based, fast, and chaining damage boost, can be devastating, defense SUCKS you cannot use the final chain moves in heavy armor.
- Knight – Another strength based class, knight can deal good damage when paired with the warrior’s strength boosts, good for charging in for the kill, limitations are that lances have a minimum attack range that is hard to adjust to.
- Ninja – The ninja talent is a welcome newcomer to the game as it grants mid range damage and is capable of stun locking opponents as well as having several aoe (area of effect) move that are devastating, but if an enemy manages to break the stunlock you may want warrior or fighter to bail you out as a secondary class
- Puppeteer – Yes you read right puppeteer. This is a powerful class when you get leveling it, the puppet skills are the ones you should focus on. It is advised you pick 1 puppet and train it to rank 5 or so it makes it the tanking-est meat shield you’ve ever seen, puppets can deal pretty high damage but require a higher dexterity and strength to be effective,
- Bard– WOAH WOAH HOLD IT KEI! BARD!? REALLY?! Yes, before you get your panties in a twist, let me explain. The Bard class underwent SERIOUS re-balancing. Bard is considered a support class. The fact is the bards skills must be used rather close to enemies and allies to prove effective. You can knock enemies out with lullaby, buff up with battle overture and then use dischord to deal decent damage with a dot (damage over time) effect, which also slows the enemy. (lullaby will only knock out an enemy once though so make sure you use it wisely) Bard is a good class to have backing you up.
- Construct Alchemy – This is actually very much a close range skill set as only 2 of the skills are combat worthy and even then only really 1 of them is usable in all areas. That, folks, is the Golem summoning skill. You can set it to auto and it’s ai will be rather duh, or you can actually manually control it and use it as a fighting tank, much like the puppetry skill but with more omph in my opinion. Barrier spikes is nice but only usable in dungeons and shadow missions, it’s best you use it yo box yourself in to a corner and then control your golem from your spiky hide away. the other good one is rain casting, which buffs a move from the battle alchemy talent. other than that you’ll be using a intermediate level mage to crystalize spells off of.
- Cleric – Okay Kei you’ve gotta be pulling our legs now, cleric is NOT a battle class. Au contraire (that is probably wrong but meh). Cleric is actually a ‘battle’ class these days, yes I know it focuses on healing traditionally but Mabi has expanded this class to make it more worth while. This class now has shielding skills that not only disrupt arrow fire, but fire, lightning or even ice damage! only one can be active at a time though. It also is the parent class of a player favorite skill of mana shield, which lets you take a hit and rather than drawing off your hp takes mp instead. And again like with bard you have to be close to your allies to make the best use of it.
Mid – Long range (aka don’t get in my face)
- Archer – As previously stated super damage from a distance, the key focus of archer is wound damage, which prevents enemy regeneration. It can deal damage fast but the skills get expensive to level up.
- Mage – Oh goodie! The ever evolving mage talent. This class can get to be MASSIVELY damaging from a distance, the broad spectrum of skill is devastating. Starting with basic bolt magic it may not look impressive, rank it high and watch it fly the low level bolt spells can literally become game changers in the higher ranks, especially if you get bolt mastery and fusion bolt. The intermediate spells. A pain to get, worth every second of the torment. These produce large aoe damage and can turn the tide of battle even at low levels, that is IF you can cast quick enough. I’ve not gotten the highest level spells except for meteor strike and all I can say is, WOW. With a mage mastered with all the spells at your disposal you’ll have such versatility that you’ll NEVER even think about the high cost of time effort blood sweat and tears you’ve put in to this class. It takes dedication to reach the epitome of this one, and it’s also expensive in potions, not to mention if you aren’t skilled with the bolt counter system you might be in trouble.
- Battle Alchemy – Galaxis lists this as a close range skill but I beg to differ. The variety of alchemy skills makes this easily a massive power house, a rank 1 water cannon with just a single charge can be ungodly devastating, let alone all five charges. I came to this class late in the game but found it’s major drawback it is more a midrage skill but if an enemy reaches you you have exactly 0 time to load any of your skills even wind blast, which generates a knockback effect on only a single target, can become impossible to use thus making your cylinder take massive damage, which it already takes from firing the skills (let’s be honest it’s a mini cannon on your arm. It’s gonna tear itself apart eventually) Additionally the class is highly expensive to maintain not just in Ap (ability points) but in cold hard cash, repairs can be outrageously pricy and the crystals are a big money suck as you get to use them more and more.
- Gunslinger – Wow yeah let me just say this is not a class I recommend to a beginner. It’s a class that requires precision and perfect timing. Short stuns and high damage are this class’s claim to fame. Unfortunately, it can be really hard to get into the swing of, even with good armor. If you can’t get the timing down this sets you up for the beating of a lifetime.
Non-Combative Talents
- Merchant – Earn gold by trading between towns. Halves your battle capabilities, high risk, high pay out, and your gold becomes a weapon!
- Adventurer – This class is unavailable to beginners. Fish, tame, transform and explore (yeah there’s actually a skill for it now.)
- Carpentry – Make stuff with wood, you’ll be a friend to puppeteers and archers for sure
- Cooking – Feed the masses of Mabi! This talent lets you be a cooking pro! (even if you suck irl)
- Medicine/Apothecary – Craft potions to heal the wounded, replenish a mage, give a crafter enough juice to finish that big order, and maybe even a good luck potion to get you a special item! (highly profitable)
- Smithing – Crafting the best tools, weapons, and armor, outfit you and all your compatriots.
- Tailoring – Weave threat, fabrics and silk then sew it all together into pretty clothes (and never pay npc’s ridiculous prices again!)
Hero Talents
These talents are combinations of some of the above listed. They cost an in game currency called pons to obtain and pons cost real money so think carefully before you chose one of these. To use or keep a hero talent upon rebirth cost 39 pons. It’s an investment, get your money’s worth.
- Druid – Mage, Cleric, and Apothecary this class relies on the super-sized mana pool and grants spell-walk, snap-cast and the mother of all Meteor Strike!
- Starlet – Also called Soul Star. Bard, puppetry, and cleric. Buff yourself, your party, and your puppets while tending to the needs of your party. This talent also grants song, encore, and fantastic chorus
- Vates – Battle Alchemy, Construct Alchemy, and Close Combat, making up for what both alchemy classes lack the Vates class supplements the warrior class to cover the weaknesses of the alchemy talents. The skills elemental wave, golden time and hydra transmutation are given by this class.
- Culinary Artist – Cooking, Medicine, and Close Combat this class caters(literally) to the body’s need for a good meal and medicine to heal, while hunting down monsters for rare ingredients. Grants catering, ingredient hunting and tasting.
- Treasure Hunter – Adventurer, Merchant, and Gunslinger you know how to make a few gold and keep them safe from the careless, you travel the world seeking riches, and you know how to get yourself out of tougher scrapes wielding your dual pistols! The class grants the exploration mastery, artifact investigation and crisis escape skills.
If you want more comprehensive data about these talent classes please check http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Talent to view their stat gains and ap costs
ONWARD TO ERINN
BACK TO BUSINESS! You’ve now selected your class! Congrats! You will now exit the soul stream, auto magically, and set foot for the first time in Erinn. Depending on your race you will spawn in one of 3 places. Humans spawn in Tir Chronaill, Elves spawn in Fillia, and Giants spawn in Vales. Each race has it’s own version of the beginner missions and generally they are similar. Additionally, as you start wandering your way around you might want to take a gander at the battle class board, there is a quest with each beginner talent (as far as I’m aware) that will give you a ‘crash course’ in how to utilize your selected class. You activate this by addressing the board.
Making your first bit of gold
So, you’ve wandered around a little and you see that just beyond the limits of the town there are monsters, well if you chose a combat class you are in luck! You just found your first test cases to get a feel for your skills outside a pre-scripted lesson. Combatants I’ll come back to you in a moment. Let me buzz by our crafters!
If you went non-combative (or if you aren’t ready to go picking fights yet) let me redirect your attention to the part time jobs in your town. Many places with in the starting towns have part time jobs, by completing them you can earn small chunks of gold and experience, and some times items. Two styles of job that will become your best friend are the Healer’s House and the Church. Certain Healer’s House jobs and most Church jobs offer Holy Water as a reward.
- But Keeeeeei! Why do I need Holy Water? What am I gonna vanquish demons with it?! Err… no not exactly. Holy Water is used to bless your equipment. Why bless? Because gear does wear out and worn out gear must be repaired. Repairing takes money… LOTS of money. Blessing makes repairs more certain to succeed, and it lowers the rate of durability loss. You don’t need to repair blessed items as often. Which means you can spend more time making money. Not to mention that in some cases a full stack of holy water sells in player shops in places like Dunbarton for 15k
Kei! This item says unavailable for repair! What do I do?! You bless it and use it sparingly. If that can’t be done find something else to do that can make you money until you can buy a replacement.
Okay, non combatants, get your pens, papers and or word processors open! This next section will be going back to the combatants.
So after you’ve explored your starter town found it’s boundaries, and have begun snooping, HEY! LOOK! IT’S A KILLABLE CRITTER! Depending on where you are and what you are facing your critter may or may not attack you. Some auto aggro when targeted, some could give a fart less about you. Watch your foe, see how quickly they react to your presence. If it doesn’t aggro you or come trying to kill you if you walk by, it’s a passive mob. Generally weak but can drop gold or items. OH GOD KEI IT’S TRYING TO EAT MY FACE OFF! Hey, looks like you found your local aggro monsters! Good job! These tend to drop a little better money and items. You can get gear drops from them some times as well as potions.
Kei! What’s this weird thing? I’ve seen a few of them drop, it says fomor scroll. What’s that do? I’ve tried to sell them but they are kinda worthless. Fomor scrolls are kind of a very special thing IF you know how to work with them. They stack in counts of 10. Once you have 10 of a single kind, try to find someone in the area that sells collection quest scroll for that fomor scroll type. you can then buy the scroll, usually rather inexpensively, immediately turn in the quest, boom you just earned back a substantial amount from your little investment. As time goes by you’ll see that certain scrolls are worth more than others and you’ll learn which you can farm most efficiently and which you can just discard. Mimic are a popular choice for scroll hunting at 6k for each stack of ten. If your inventory fills up with items you can’t or don’t use sell them to one of the many shops
Kei, my inventory is full of gold! I can’t sell that! Take it easy, not to fret. Buy yourself a gold pouch, if you’ve out grown the small one the contents of the small one cover the cost for the larger one. Then after you buy the new larger pouch sell the old one, to net yourself a small return.
The general idea here is to get you some seed money. This will get you better gear, which in turn lets you face tougher enemies, which lets you earn better rewards!
Leveling, AP,Skills, And Rebirth!
OH MY GOD! KEI!! I level REALLY slow. Why?! And I don’t have a lot of AP for leveling or… ranking up my skills! What do I doooo!?
Calm down. You are facing the age old crisis of Mabinogi players. The first thing I will tell you is as a newbie (up to level 1000) you are saddled with the ‘beginner’ tag. Up to level 100 I believe you are granted free rebirths every day. My advice? Don’t bother with it right away. Yes the game WILL suggest you do it, no you shouldn’t do it right away but you shouldn’t be afraid of rebirthing either. So let’s break this down.
Leveling and Asking for Help
The primary reason for this is to obtain AP (Ability points). In order to level up you must defeat enemies that are about your ‘level’ or stronger. When hiting the alt key if a monster has Weak or Weakest by it’s name, you will receive little to no experience, making it difficult to level up. The one exception to this is in a dungeon, where even weak monsters provide small amounts of experience. Using your talent’s skills is another way to level up. As each skill is used it obtains a certain amount of training experience, which translates in to a small amount of experience being transferred to your current level. This is why you’ll see you level up faster using a skill with in your talent set. Once you get going you’ll find that experience comes slower and slower.
This is when you should start thinking about dungeons, daily collection quests, and shadow missions. Usually you can get help from more experienced players in conquering the dungeons and the shadow missions. Never ever be afraid of asking for help. Asking for help shows a willingness to learn. However, don’t be a pest, don’t rush anyone and don’t take advice poorly. If someone is being nice enough to help you it’s extremely rude to go ‘are you ready yet?’ ‘Ready yet?’ ‘are you done yet?’ ‘let’s go, let’s go’ that’s the difference between a newbie and a noob. A newbie is willing to learn from a senior player, a noob is obnoxious and does not respect that the other player may be busy. Some people have patience for noobs. Some don’t. Most people have patience to deal with newbies. But that’s all about your behavior that classifies you as a newbie or a noob.
AP and Skills
Ability points. The essential currency of character upgrades. As skills rank up they require AP to take them to the next level. AP is a precious commodity. That’s why when special events literally gift out AP potions, people do not like to share. Ever. So don’t ever ask for AP potions. AP is gained by leveling up both current level and exploration levels. I’ve heard rumors the max level cap on current level is 100 while the level cap on exploration levels is 30. After you can no longer use daily rebirths because your total level is too high you will have to wait one week before you can rebirth again. This used to be MUCH MUCH longer. Initially, you had to have a character card and had to wait a week between rebirths, then they changed it so that when your character aged up to 25 you could rebirth for free or after one week with a card. Then they changed it to when you hit age 20 or after a week with a card. Now you can rebirth for free once a week. Considering some people manage to accrue 50 levels with in a few hours of rebirthing it’s to say the least that you can manage the same. Potentially you can earn up to 128 ap from leveling both normal levels and exploration in one week.
Participating in the daily shadow missions, dungeons and the season one saga episodes of the day gift small items called ap coupons. 10 coupons grant 1 ap. Completing main story quests and quest lines give ap potions, as well as some quests. Sometimes Mabi hosts events that gift ap potions, like the roulette bingo event for instance. Ap is precious spend it wisely.
Rebirth
Okay now for a tricky subject. Rebirths. When you rebirth I recommend being lvl 50 or above and have at least 10-15 levels of exploration. That’s 58-63 ap. When you rebirth ALWAYS reset your level and age. I know, I can already hear the cries of I don’t want to be low level again. You aren’t actually. Your character retains it’s total level which is the culmination of all your experience and skill upgrades, those stay it’s just the current level is reset to 1, allowing you to easily level up again and gain more ap.
Upon rebirth you can also change your talent so that you can gain more experience from a different set of skills.
Okay, now that we’ve got you started make sure you do your quests and complete them. You will have A LOT to do. Which is the beauty of this game, there is SO much you can do in this game. Keichan1 out, keep it fun, keep it odd!
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